Almost
by Shira Lansys
Summary: In which Lily and Lorcan almost get together. Almost.


He's watching her practice in the stands when Rose plonks herself down next to him, book in hand. He's startled slightly, and he blushes as though he's been caught doing something immoral. It's not, really; he always watches her when she plays Quidditch. There's nothing wrong with it, even if his reasons are far from platonic.

"She's in fine form today," Rose comments.

Lorcan laughs. "It almost sounds as though you know what you're talking about," he tells her, amused.

"Almost?"

"She hasn't yet caught the snitch and they've been practicing for an hour. Even I've seen a glint of gold twice. I wouldn't say she's 'in fine form'."

Rose pulls a face. "Well it looks like she's doing well," she says defensively. "It's so hard to tell with seekers!"

Lorcan's grin lingers. "Yeah, but I imagine anyone except for you would have been able to," he teases gently.

"Shush, you," Rose says. And he does, his eyes returning to the distant, red-headed blur zooming around the pitch.

Rose's book rests on her lap, unopened, and her eyes are on the players, although Lorcan knows it's not because she's immersed in the training session. Lorcan knows that because he knows _Rose_; she might be able to quote whole chapters of transfiguration textbooks, but give her a Quidditch match to watch and she'd be more out of her depth than a merman in the Sahara.

So he knows she's sitting in the stands for a reason – and that reason isn't to watch Quidditch. As she's sitting next to him, he assumes that he's it. But he doesn't prompt her to ask what is clearly on her mind.

After a few minutes, Rose opens her mouth to say something, but Lorcan gets there first. "Look, she's spotted the snitch!" he exclaims, pointing. Sure enough, Lily is zooming towards the ground at about a hundred miles an hour, chasing a glint of gold that Lorcan can just see if he squints.

"Oh Merlin," Rose squeaks. "She's going to crash!"

"Nah," Lorcan says confidently, not taking his eyes off of her. "Not our Lils."

"I can't look!" Rose says, covering her eyes. "Tell me when it's over!"

Lorcan watches as she gets nearer and nearer to the ground. A small amount of concern for her safety flickers over him as she speedily runs out of room to pull from the dive, but he doesn't show it. She can look after herself and he knows it.

At the last minute, she's forced to pull away, snitchless. He can't see her expression from this distance, but he can picture it as accurately as if she was standing in front of him.

"She's pulled out," he tells Rose, who tentatively squints through her fingers before finding the courage to uncover her face completely. "She missed the snitch."

Rose laughs. "You're actually disappointed for her, aren't you?" she asks.

Lorcan pulls a face. He has to work on not letting every single emotion show through his voice. "Yeah," he admits.

"Why?" Rose sounds genuinely baffled. "I mean… it's just practice." Her tone was hesitant as she said the last bit, as though fearing that Lorcan would, like everyone else, take advantage of her question to mock her about how little she understood or enjoyed Quidditch.

"It's not that," Lorcan says. "It's just… I know she'll be disappointed that she didn't get it, and I wish that she wasn't disappointed."

His face flames as he realises how mushy that sounds, and one glance sideways at Rose tells him she's wearing a very endearing grin. "You really like her, don't you?" she asks softly.

He can't look at Rose as he replies. "As a friend, yeah!" Lorcan says, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. In a moment of madness, he considers leaping off the Quidditch stands just to escape the teasing he knows he'll endure if Rose tells everyone how he feels about Lily.

"Of course," Rose says, somehow managing a completely straight face. "I'm sure it's _completely _platonic."

"Absolutely," Lorcan agrees.

He glances at Rose and their eyes meet. They both burst out laughing.

"You can't lie to save your life!" Rose tells him through her giggles. "It's a good thing you don't have anything important to keep a secret."

"Well…" Lorcan says, but then realises he has no defence. Rose starts giggling again.

"It sounds stupid," he says, when she's got control of herself again. "But I wish… I wish I could make it so that every snitch she ever tries to get just flies into her hand." He feels himself redden again, but this time, Rose doesn't laugh.

"No matter how silly or stupid, the heart knows no logic," she says.

"Wow, you actually are really wise."

Rose smiles. "It was a quote, silly," she says. "We always watch muggle videos when we visit our grandparents because Mum's the only one who can work the DVD player. That was in a movie and it sort of stuck with me."

Lorcan sends her a sideways glance. "You too, huh?" he asks. This time it's Rose's turn to blush.

"Not exactly," she says. "It's… different… to you and Lily."

"How so?" he asks.

"I don't have a chance," she says, attempting a light-hearted tone. It doesn't work.

Lorcan wraps an arm around her. "I'm sure that's not the case," he says comfortingly. "What's not to like about you? You're smart, funny, attractive-"

"A guy?" Rose interrupts.

"Ah," Lorcan says. "You like him."

"Yeah."

"I did wonder… but you never told me…"

"Yeah, well…"

They sit there in comfortable silence for a few moments, Lorcan's arm still around Rose's shoulders. "What did you want to ask me?" he says eventually.

"Huh?" Rose asks. "I didn't want to ask you anything."

"Sure you didn't," Lorcan says. "That's why you came over to watch Quidditch practice, which you hate, with me, who you like but don't like enough to pointlessly subject yourself to watching a bunch of people fly around on brooms."

"What makes you think that?"

"You used those exact words on me last week when I told you that you should come to the game."

"Ah."

"So spit it out," Lorcan tells her, removing his arm from her shoulders.

Rose looks… almost sheepish. She fishes into her bag for a moment. "Apple?" she says, presenting him with a red apple. "Or chocolate?" she pulls out a bar of Honeydukes Finest.

"You're bribing me with fruit?" Lorcan asks, both confused and amused. And a little bit curious.

"And chocolate!" Rose says, waving the bar under his nose.

"You know I don't like chocolate," Lorcan reminds her.

"I know," Rose says. "That's why I brought the apple instead.

"Then why'd you bother with the chocolate?"

"It would have seemed weird just offering you an apple."

"To be honest, Rose, this is weirder."

"Right." She shoves the chocolate bar back into her bag. "So… apple?"

He takes it.

"What's the bad news?" he asks, taking a bite.

"Who says it's bad?" Rose asks indignantly.

"Would you be bribing me if it was good?"

"Point." She waits until he takes another bite and has a mouthful before saying, "I've signed you up as a tutor for failing first years."

"What?" he says through a mouthful of apple. "No! I don't want to. First years are horrid!"

"You were one once," Rose points out.

"Yes, and I was horrid!"

"Right. Well, we're meeting in the Charms classroom Thursday afternoon, straight after class. Don't be late." She goes to get up.

"What, no!" Lorcan says, grabbing her wrist. "I said I don't want to do it!"

"Tough," Rose says. "I'm Head Girl. You don't have a choice. Besides, you're a Ravenclaw Prefect. You need to act worthy of your badge."

"Do the other prefects have to do it?"

"Not exactly," Rose admits. "But I need this on my record! I'm going into the Ministry next year – they won't take just anyone. Starting a tutoring group looks good when I'm applying for a position."

"You'd think being Head Girl is enough," Lorcan grumbles.

"Head Girl is never enough," Rose says. "And remember, don't be late."

She shoves her book into her satchel cheerfully, sweeping it over her shoulder. As she exits the stands, Lorcan shouts after her, "The power's gone to your head, you know!"

She just waves cheerfully back at him. Looking out over the pitch, Lorcan realises the training was over and there were no players in sight. They must be in the changing rooms, he realises. With a groan, he stretches and stands.

As he makes his way across the pitch to where he'd wait for Lily, he realises he never actually agreed to do it.

What did it matter, though? They both knew he'd be there.

* * *

It was as bad as he expected it to be, Lorcan muses as he traipses back to the common room. He's the last to leave tutoring; it was after curfew for the first years, so everyone else had instantly volunteered to escort them back to their house dormitories. That meant he got to put the furniture back and clean up the classroom before leaving on his lonesome to head back to Ravenclaw Tower.

'_Stupid Rose,' _he thinks. _'And stupid me for being such a pushover.'_

The first years had been _horrible_ and the things they had to teach them were so basic they were _boring_. It might have been alright if they'd been intelligent students who'd signed up for the extra lessons but sadly that wasn't the case. They'd all been forced into the tutoring by their teachers because they were failing one or more subjects, which meant they wanted to be there even less than the tutors did. It made for a slow and painful session.

And they were absolute _brats_, to boot! When they weren't sulking or chatting amongst themselves, they were causing mischief. Higgins had his head swelled to the size of a beach ball. The kid _claimed _it had been an accident, but Lorcan didn't believe him in the slightest.

"Whatcha up to?" a voice says smoothly from beside him. Lorcan jumps about a foot, his hand reaching for his wand instantly before realising who it is who'd been waiting for him in the shadows.

"Lily!" he exclaims. "You scared the hell out of me!"

Lily smiles at him and Lorcan feels himself relax instantly. "It's my Slytherin abilities," she says, her eyes sparkling. "You never know when I'll pop up."

"What are you doing here?" he asks her. "It's almost curfew, and your dorms are nowhere near here."

"You weren't at practice." She pouts slightly. "I mean, I'm all for you actually getting a life and all, but I just wanted to know where you were."

"Oh, Rose cornered me the other day and forced me to do some tutoring stuff with her." Lorcan pulls a face. "I don't know how she managed to convince me."

"Oh." Lily's voice sounds strange, and Lorcan looks up to see her face is surprisingly hard. "That must have been fun."

"Not really," Lorcan says. "In fact, it was terrible."

"Right." Lily's voice is still strange. "So where is Rose, anyway? I would have thought you'd be walking together seeing as you're in the same house."

"She had to escort the students back to their houses," Lorcan asks. "Lily, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she says. Lorcan realises they're standing their awkwardly, and is about to say that he should probably get going when she asks, "So are you two official now, or what?"

"What do you mean, 'official?'" Lorcan asks, confused, although he has a sneaking suspicion as to what she's talking about.

"Don't play dumb, Lorcan, it doesn't suit you. You know, you could have told me, at least."

The barely-concealed anger in her voice is like a slap in his face. "Lily, Rose and I aren't dating," he says.

"Sure," Lily says scathingly. "That's why you're hanging off her every word."

"I'm not!" Lorcan says. "She asked me to do this because I'm a prefect!"

"You said yes because she asked though, didn't you?"

"Not the way you think!" Lorcan exclaims. "Lily, I don't like Rose!"

"Sure," Lily says again. Her tone was less argumentative, but no more believing.

"It's the truth!" Lorcan exclaims. Then a thought strikes him. "Why do you even care?"

"I don't," Lily says quickly. "You could have told me, is all."

"Well you don't tell me who you like," Lorcan pointed out.

"I'd tell you if I were dating someone," Lily retaliated.

"So would I." There's silence for a moment. Then he adds, "I really don't like Rose, you know."

Lily's expression relaxes. "Alright then, I believe you," she says. "I'd better get back before curfew. Goodnight."

"'Night," Lorcan replies.

And she turns and walks back down the corridor away from Lorcan. He feels the impulse to yell out after her, "It's you! I like you!" and he almost does it. He opens his mouth and everything. But the words catch in his throat and he ends up choking on them as she turns the corner and is gone.

His shoulders slump and he turns back towards Ravenclaw tower. He barely takes a step before Rose steps out from a side passage.

"Were you listening?" he demands.

"Every word. Way to screw up, doofus."

"Hey, at least she isn't yelling at me anymore," Lorcan points out.

"No, but you missed the perfect opportunity to tell her how you feel."

Lorcan considers replying tartly but just sighs instead. "I know," he says. "I'm an idiot, aren't I?"

"Yes you are," Rose informs him cheerfully. "But don't worry. At least something came from that."

"Oh?" Lorcan asks. "What?"

"At least we know she definitely likes you."

* * *

**So what did you think? Please review! Even if it's just one word. They're all appreciated!**

**For bonus points, who knows my (and my ships) well enough to guess who Rose has a crush on? XD**


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